Edwin Black brings brings an important part of the Holocaust to light: the Farhud (violent dispossession), two days of frightful violence, looting, and murder visited on the Jews of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities on Shauvot of 1941, June 1–2. Based on his book of the same name.

The Holocaust is often perceived as a primarily European phenomenon, and the travails of the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa are often forgotten. Project Witness is helping change that with its program for educators, “The Untold Plight: The Sephardic Communities in the Holocaust.”

On International Farhud Day, Edwin explores the deadly Arab-Nazi alliance that stretched from Paris to Palestine. Conference of Presidents leader Malcolm Hoenlein and HARIF-UK co-founder Lyn Julius join Edwin.

Hundreds of innocent men, women, and children were brutally attacked, their homes and shops burned, in the heinous June 1–2, 1941, Arab-Nazi pogrom in Baghdad. This was the beginning of the end of Iraqi Jewry. Farhud means “violent dispossession.” But could it happen again—even in the US?

The event was hosted by Congregation Ohav Zedek of Wilkes-Barre with Temple Israel and the Jewish Community Alliance, plus Beth Shalom Scranton, Sons of Israel, Kesher Israel, and others. There was a live reception with refreshments at Ohav Zedek for the big-screen event.

Remember the hundreds who died in Baghdad on June 1, 1941—the beginning of the end of Jewry in Iraq. Can it happen again—in Europe or the United States?

Edwin Black, who originated International Farhud Day and is the New York Times bestselling author of The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust, is joined by Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Lyn Julius of HARIF, Rabbi Elie Abadie, Council of Sages, UAE, Zalmi Unsdorfer of Likud UK, and other leading voices to ask the uncomfortable questions.

The Farhud—“violent dispossession”—was a bloody, citywide Arab-Nazi pogrom in Baghdad, June 1–2, 1941. June 1 was proclaimed as International Farhud Day in 2015 by Edwin Black and Jewish leaders at a live global event at UN Headquarters. Rabbi Elie Abadie in New York, co-president of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, Lyn Julius in London, founder of the Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, Lily Shor in Tel Aviv, of the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center, and others join Edwin to explore the tragic events of those two days and the subsequent escape of major Nazi figures into the leadership and governments of neighboring Arab countries, thus creating the post-War Middle East.